


tonight in the dark, we’re seeing colours

by zozo



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: CBS is a coward and I am not, Crossover, Deal With It, Gen, Michael Burnham is Captain, One Shot, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24545236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zozo/pseuds/zozo
Summary: You know how it is. You’re flying through space. All it takes is one little wormhole…
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Darla/Entrapta (She-Ra)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	tonight in the dark, we’re seeing colours

**Author's Note:**

> On continuity: This is set a few months after Season 5 for the She-Ra characters and in a vague post-Season 2 AU for the Disco characters. Beware all attendant spoilers.

“Catra… I’m trying to fly the ship.”

“Darla’s a big girl,” Catra drawls. “She can fly herself.”

“ _Auto-pilot is engaged,_ ” Darla confirms, and Catra wriggles even further into Adora’s lap. Adora sighs, resigned to her cuddly, purring fate, and is about to slip an arm around Catra’s waist when a kaleidoscope of colours bursts into existence out the windows. Catra yowls in surprise and leaps off Adora’s lap, rushing to get a better look even as the ship starts to tremble.

“What’s going on?” Adora cries. “Entrapta? Bow?”

“I don’t know!” they both shout back, desperately trying to make sense of the readouts on their respective stations. “Whatever it is,” Entrapta adds gleefully, “we’re going right into it!”

The flickering colours are _inside_ the ship for a moment, and then seem to recede, and then the trembling stops. The only thing outside the windows again is a glittering starfield…

…and a huge new spaceship that _definitely_ wasn’t there before.

It’s not as massive as Horde Prime’s mothership, and very flat—much longer and wider than it is tall—but it still dwarfs Darla. There seem to be three main sections: a wedge shape with wings at the ostensible rear, with a round “head” at the end of a short “neck” sticking out ahead of that, and a big round ring encircling it in front.

And it just… sits there.

“Darla, what can you tell us about that… ship out there?”

Darla’s console glitters with various patterns of light. “ _Unknown affiliation. Unknown design. Matter/anti-matter power source. Unknown faster-than-light propulsion. Weapons systems detected; unknown offensive capacity. Energy shields detected; unknown defensive capacity. Life signs detected; unknown crew c—_ ”

“Okay, Darla, thanks,” says Adora. “Can we… talk to them somehow?”

“ _Scanning remote hardware… inconclusive. Scanning local electromagnetics for potential communication traffic… scan continuing. Administrator authorization required to extend scan to extra-spatial spectra._ ”

“Extra-what?” Catra interjects.

“ _Due to power management policies, administrator authorization is required for all functions related to querying variant domains of space-time._ ”

Adora frowns, not sure what the computer means. “Is that… risky?”

“ _Negative,_ ” says Darla. “ _But power consumption by the ship’s antennas will increase by 440%._ ”

“Which is fine,” Entrapta assures them, with a brief caress along Darla’s console. “Darla can handle it, can’t you, baby.”

“ _Affirmative. Ship’s power stores are more than adequate._ ”

“Mmm,” purrs Entrapta, “yes they are.”

“Okay!” interrupts Bow, a little louder than he needs to. “Adora?”

“Right. Darla, unlock the… extra communications scanning, please.”

“ _Administrator authorization accepted. Scanning local subspace for potential communication traffic… potential signal found. Modulating… modulating… audio-visual data stream resolved. Communication request identified. Shall I open a channel?_ ”

Everyone looks at each other. “That was easy,” Glimmer mutters.

Adora takes a deep, deep breath and squares her shoulders. Catra comes to stand next to her in a quiet show of moral support. Entrapta bounces on her hair in anticipation.

“Yes, please, Darla. Let’s say hello.”

* * *

Captain Michael Burnham has been in Starfleet for a minute; she’s seen her share of quantum spatial anomalies, both in person and in the logs of other starships. Some were awe-inspiring, some terrifying, some were invisible without special sensor filters. Very few were boring.

But she’s never seen one that looks so… _pretty_ before. It’s giving off dozens of colours of rich, vibrant light in the human-visible spectrum, sparkling in space like an ornament, or a perpetually-exploding firework.

Some days she really, really loves her job.

Then a small, angular ship emerges from the centre of the anomaly and the red-alert klaxon goes off, and it kind of ruins the moment.

“What the hell!” she asks no one in particular—meaning everyone on the bridge. The display on her captain’s chair is flashing the alert code, but it’s not one she recognizes off the top of her head.

At one of the science stations, Ensign Tilly pulls up the initial scan of the strange little ship. “It’s the quantum signature,” she says, “it doesn’t match ours. It triggered a protocol for encounters with the Mirror Universe.”

Michael whips around in shock. “That’s a Terran ship?” But Tilly shakes her head at once.

“No, it’s… it has a _third_ quantum signature. It’s from a different universe entirely.”

First Officer Saru inclines his head curiously. “Then I think we can stand down to Yellow Alert for now.” The klaxon stops. “What else do we know about them?”

Tilly runs a few commands and the scan on her display begins to accumulate detail. “Pretty simple FTL drive. Tough little shields, but… nothing in the way of weapons. I guess they could ram us pretty hard if they wanted to. And—if I’m reading these radiological signs correctly, it’s _old_. Like, over a thousand years old.”

A momentary stillness falls over the bridge. Even in a different universe, a thousand years in the past is… well, it’s home.

“How is it possibly still spaceworthy?” Saru asks.

Tilly shakes her head, still scanning. “Huh. It’s not _all_ that old. Parts of it are, like, brand new. But the spaceframe, most of the hull plating, the stardrive… yeah, those’re frickin’ ancient.”

Michael tries to keep her excitement at bay, but this is turning into a delicious little mystery. “Life signs?”

“Um… five. All humanoid… and I’m gonna say… healthy adults?”

“All right,” Michael says. “Keep our sensors locked on that anomaly, make sure it stays nice and friendly. Detmer, get ready to get us out of here—them, too, Owosekun, lock on a tractor beam—if it doesn’t. Bryce, can we hail them?”

Lt. Bryce at Communications pauses before answering, one hand touching his silver earpiece. “Sensors show they’re equipped with _some_ kind of subspace radio, I’m looking right at the antenna, but… it might not be powered up. Wait—they just turned it on. Opening hailing frequencies.” He nods at her to begin anytime.

“This is Captain Michael Burnham of the United Federation of Planets starship _Discovery_. You’ve just passed through a quantum wormhole into a parallel universe—our home. We are peaceful explorers. Can we be of assistance?”

Bryce has to tweak the video encoding, but soon he has the channel open.

There are indeed five people on the viewscreen. _Young_ people, Michael realizes. Four of them look essentially human, though one’s hair is naturally sparkling with light somehow, and another’s seems to be… prehensile? The one seated in the middle is flanked by the fifth person, who looks kind of like a sullen Caitian, lurking with the body language of a personal guard.

“We read you, _Discovery_.” The one in the middle, presumably the captain, speaks. Her voice is as young as her face, but neither lacks for steely authority. “My name is Adora. We come from a planet called Etheria. We’re peaceful explorers too. _What_ did you just say about a parallel universe?”

* * *

Nobody had really considered it before, but it has a dreadful sense of inevitability once they do: Despondos and their original universe weren’t the only two dimensions out there, and the space kaleidoscope they encountered was actually a portal—possibly even a naturally occurring one.

The woman who’d introduced herself as Captain Burnham doesn’t _look_ like a strange alien from a parallel universe. If anything, she looks like a princess. Not everyone on the bridge of _Discovery_ looks exactly like her, but nobody looks stranger than the average Etherian, either. There’s one who’s a lot taller and skinnier than his comrades, but even he wouldn’t look out of place on the streets of, say, Elberon, if he ditched that severely-tailored indigo uniform they’re all wearing.

Catra’s almost let down. She was hoping to meet someone at least as weird as Melog. These are just… people.

Entrapta, though, is literally vibrating with excitement. “An entirely new universe full of uncollected _data!_ ” she squeaks. “We have to stay and collect some! Please, Adora!”

“Will the portal—the wormhole—stay open for long?” Adora asks—including Bow, Entrapta, and the other crew in her question.

A very pale-skinned woman behind Captain Burnham with a whole lot of curly red hair speaks up. “According to the readings I’m getting, it’s semi-stable—it will close, but not for at least a few days. Four days? Probably not more than five.”

Adora nods. “Well… we’re explorers, aren’t we? Why don’t we plan to stay three days before we head back through the—the wormhole.”

Captain Burnham gives her a dazzling smile. “Yes,” she says, looking more like a princess than ever. “Yes, we are explorers.”

**Author's Note:**

> But since nothing actually happens in this and I don’t have a plan for more and I _really_ thought nobody except my friend up there would care... I kind of forgot I wrote this? For almost a week? So now it lives here in case I ever get an idea for Chapter 2.
> 
> Mostly I just missed my Disco bridge babies (SEASON 3 WHEN), and I only know how to express my feelings through She-Ra anymore, so. This was a perfect fit.
> 
> (I have a currently-semi-active [Star Trek tumblr](https://discotreque.tumblr.com) and a currently- _very_ -active [She-Ra tumblr](https://emilythesphericalrobot.tumblr.com), and this is me remembering to link to them.)


End file.
